ContradictionsReading order 398Bible context 1 min read
Was Keturah Abraham's wife or concubine?
The same named woman receives different relationship titles in Genesis and Chronicles.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Minor
- A local detail in a story, chronology, or inventory.
Wife and concubine classify Keturah differently, but the excerpts establish neither exclusive legal categories nor an unchanged status.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Genesis identifies Keturah as Abraham's wife
Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.
Genesis 25:1
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Genesis 25
Chronicles identifies Keturah as Abraham's concubine
Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham’s concubine: she bare Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan; Sheba, and Dedan.
1 Chronicles 1:32
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:1 Chronicles 1